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2024-05-07 00:00
in Greece2024, Ntrips
It had been many years since I had wanted to go to Greece, and it finally happened. There is a lot to see in the country, so planning it was not trivial, especially since Rick Steve's book of course recommends to spend longer than I did have this time around (it was sandwiched between 2 other non movable trips).
Notes below:
You can go here for the list of posts for this trip
Rick's book recommended at least one week around mainland greece, plus one week doing islands. It was tricky to decide what to but but starting with Nafplio was very nice and laidback
After being efficient with Epidavros and Mycenae, that left some bonus time to drive to Olympia, which is quite out of the way, but was worth the long detour. It is super cool for its historical value and museum, but it id indeed out of the way to get back to Athens after that.
While I planned 3 days for Athens as recommended by Rick, with long days, was able to do it all in 2 days and that left an extra bonus day to Delphi and Arachova (not to miss on a delphi trip, I only found out about it way late)
Once enough of mainland was done, the tricky part was which islands to go see. After much reading I went with Mykonos and Santorini. Getting there by fast ferry took longer than planned, especially as the ferries are chronically late by 1h or more per stop (which coumpounds to multiple hours delay when waiting in Mykonos to go to Santorini. Thankfully took a plane back from Santorini to Athens, I can't imagine how painful that ferry would have been.
Santorini is worth 2 solid days, and 3 days isn't the worst idea ever, while Mykonos can be done in a day, including the ruins at Delos, a short boad ride away.
Thoughts about Greece:
taxis are a scam, they run without meter and charge you whatever they want
ubers, at least half of them, try to do the same and some will unload you if you insist they run the meter
Athens' Parthenon was cool but at the same time it felt underwhelming that the restauration efforts seem to have fallen so short. There is apparently some rule that they can only rebuild x% of missing stuff, but honestly I wish they had just rebuilt it all to give its former grandeur
The rest of Greece was definitely interesting to see, a car is unfortunately mostly necessary for multiple parts, but driving wasn't too terrible.
All in all, definitely recommended trip and Santorini was an unexpected highlight:
See more images for Greece Trip Wrapup